Offense:
21

Defense:
6

Utility:
3

Introduction

Hello once again Mobafire! Yet another guide from me, Herkkuparila, and this time I will guide you to the ways of Yasuo, or like I like to call him, Rain of the Rift. Although he will probably be nerfed rather soon that doesn't mean that you shouldn't start playing him and enjoy his enticing gameplay style. Yasuo is an assassin or a fighter who benefits from: attack speed, movement speed, critical chance and attack damage, and is only dependent on cooldowns when casting spells.

Pros/Cons

Pros

+ No mana, only cooldowns.
+ Way of the Wanderer gives both defensive and offensive stats.
+ Sweeping Blade Can be used as a gap closer or an escape.
+ Steel Tempest's cooldown can be reduced by stacking attack speed
+ Wind Wall can be used to block a large variety of skills, and also has a great passive in it.
+ Last Breath gives armor penetration, AoE damage and is a gap closer.

Cons

- Very hard to play
- Last Breath requires a knock-up to be enabled
- Steel Tempest has a short range
- Wind Wall takes a lot of timing
- Sweeping Blade's mark lasts long
- Item dependent
- CC absolutely wrecks YasuoThisisheretomakethelistseventhisisheretomakethelistseventhisisheretomakethelistseventhisisheretomakethelistseventhisisheretomakethelistseventhisisheretomakethelistseventhisisheretomakethelistseventhisisheretomakethelistseven

Masteries

Masteries

1/5

4/5

3/5

1/1

3/5

3/1

1/

1/

3/

1/

2/5

2/5

1/1

1/5

3/5

Although the most common mastery page is 21/9/0 or 21/0/9 I think that 21/6/3 is great on Yasuo because the 3 points in Fleet of Foot allow you to replenish your flow bar quicker while the 6 points in offense grant you some defenses. I also like Double-Edged Sword on Yasuo since his Steel Tempest and Last Breath has long range although he is melee, so you will get less received damage increase and more damage output increase than you would on a ranged champion. I consider Havoc as mandatory on damage dealers (you deal 5% more damage with only Havoc and Double-Edged Sword combined which is increased to 10% when the target is below 50% hp due to Executioner , this is a strong damage increase from nothing but masteries).

Runes

Runes

Greater Seal of Armor9

Greater Mark of Attack Damage9

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist9

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage3

I personally use the above loadout, but if you like to, you can variate between critical chance, attack speed, lifesteal or armor penetration quintessences. All of these have their own benefits but I like flat attack damage marks and quintessences the most. Of course you should use whatever you like the most because runes are most often personal preferences, but I suggest these ones.

Summoner spells

Flash: Yasuo lacks real excape abilities. His dash, Sweeping Blade, might be useful as long as minions are around, but that won't happen every time you need to get out of a bad situation.

Ignite: A standard Summoner spell for mid, allowing you to pick up kills more easily.

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I am going to list some more spells that are viable for Yasuo but I will leave out those that you should never even consider.

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Cleanse works pretty well on Yasuo, who is weak against CC, but since Mercury's Treads should allow you to reduce the amount of CC on you, you don't really need a spell like that.

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Ghost would allow you to replenish flow bar faster and it also beats Flash in cooldown and the amount of ground that you can cover with it, but I still suggest using Flash.

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Teleport is good for top laners but also useful on mid if you need to counter gank when the opposing mid laner is roaming, can also be used to splitpush.

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Smite is only for junglers and I don't think that Yasuo is very good at jungling, but it might be somewhat viable, if you know how to use Yasuo in the jungle.

Skills

Way of the Wanderer: Your passive has 3 functions. Firstly it doubles all critical chance that you have, meaning that with 50% critical chance from items will grant Yasuo 100% critical chance. Secondly it gives you a shield that scales with levels, and is shown in your resource bar, dashing and walking increases your flow and it triggers (when full) to enemy champions and jungle monsters. Lastly, Yasuo's passive decreases his critical damage by 10% in order to balance his critical chance enhance.

Steel Tempest (Q): This is what Yasuo is mostly about. It is treated as a basic attack, it triggers on-hit effects (but only to the closest target) and stacks Statikk Shiv charges. When you hit 2 Steel Tempest's your next Steel Tempest is a tornado which knocks-up enemies which is required to use your ultimate Last Breath. Using Steel Tempest on lane is not bad, but if you use it to last hit you need to bear in mind that it will push your lane making you prone to enemy ganks.

Last Breath (R): Last Breath is a strong AoE damage and it also can be used to further lock-down enemies in the air, it will also give you 50% armor penetration for 15 seconds after you use it. Last Breath has one downside though, before you can use it on an enemy, he must be knocked-up (ally knock-ups and knock-backs will allow you to use it, so it's not mandatory for you to be the source of the CC.)

Items

Item Sequence

Mercury's Treads1100

Statikk Shiv2600

Infinity Edge3600

Ravenous Hydra3500

Randuin's Omen2900

Youmuu's Ghostblade2900

Although Riot suggests that you take Berserker's Greaves I would tell you otherwise. Yasuo is rather squishy and weak to CC, so the tenacity from Mercury's Treads works perfectly to counter some of that CC the enemy team has in store for you. Of course, if the enemy team doesn't have any CC, feel free to use whatever boots you like most.

Statikk Shiv gives you critical chance, movement speed and attack speed accompanied by the extra damage that the passive from Statikk Shiv deals. Since all these stats are good on Yasuo I would say that this is one of the best items on him, it will increase your wave clear, damage output and survivability (movement speed allows you to replenish flow faster).

Infinity Edge is mandatory on a damage Yasuo since it takes away the critical damage reduction from your passive and gives you strong dueling potential due to the flat attack damage and critical hit chance.

For lifesteal, I suggest Ravenous Hydra because it has the passive (splash damage, that works with your lifesteal) and active (the exact same). I like the splash damage because your Steel Tempest triggers it, and it allows you to deal more damage to the enemies in a large team fight, and of course you can push lanes really fast with this item. The Bloodthirster is a good item but it doesn't have any on-hit effects that would be triggered with Steel Tempest, although it gives the highest amount of attack damage and lifesteal. Blade of the Ruined King is best when used against tanky enemies, but personally I think that the on-hit effect is highly overestimated, although the active is really nice if you want to burst an enemy or to escape someone.

Even though full damage Yasuo might be pretty damn strong, it is not wise to go with full damage because when the enemies star focusing you, you won't last for a second. I personally prefer Randuin's Omen but Warmog's Armor or a Sunfire Cape work just as fine. If the enemy team has low attack damage, consider taking Banshee's Veil due to the nice hp bonus and magic resist, accompanied with a spell shield.

Although your ultimate gives 50% armor penetration, you can never have too much of it, Youmuu's Ghostblade gives you nicely some attack speed, movement speed and critical chance, but has only flat armor penetration. The Black Cleaver has 25% armor penetration when you stack its passive and it also gives you some hp, cdr, attack damage and some flat armor penetration, this item would be really good but you can't stack the passive that fast. Lastly there is Last Whisper which gives only flat attack damage and 35% armor penetration, this item is overlooked by new players, but when you think about it, it gives about as much attack damage as a B. F. Sword plus it also ignores 35% of your targets armor, which is really a lot.

Laning phase

Laning is rather simple with Yasuo, you can use Steel Tempest and Sweeping Blade to catch last hits that you'd miss otherwise and they make it easy to farm under your turret aswell, should you be outpushed on lane. When you get the third stack of Steel Tempest you might want to use it as a poke instead of using it on farming (I am not saying that you shouldn't use it as a farming tool when needed).

If you get caught in a gank you can use Sweeping Blade to dash through the enemy minions or jungler to get closer to the allied turret, casting Wind Wall behind you after the dash or in front of you before the dash (technically the same thing) will allow you to block some of the damage that the enemy laner or jungler is throwing at you. Don't hesitate to Flash away to save your life, a 5 minute cooldown on Flash is better than giving a kill to the enemy team.

Fighting on lane

Yasuo's low cooldowns on his damage skills allows him to play aggressively on lane, but in order to lose less health in trades you should try to have a full flow bar whenever you go on the offensive. A standard combo is to dash through a minion, hit Steel Tempest and then dash away, you will probably be using this combo for most of the time and variating it when as the situation calls.

Ganking

Since you are in mid lane you have ideal circumstances for roaming, and it may help a losing bot lane recover or easen some pressure on top lane. Unluckily enough, there are not much jungle camps where you can stack your Steel Tempest so you will have to rely on it's low cd in order to stack the knock-up but on the bright side when you gank your team's CC can enable you to use Last Breath, which means that you don't need to worry about Steel Tempest's knock-up should your top/bot lane have the right kind of CC.

After a succesful gank you should try to grab some objectivs (turrets or dragon) to further increase your team's lead. Just try to be realistic, getting dragon will be hard without the jungler and very risky if their jungler is around. And you shouldn't over-extend pushing a tower if you are low on hp.

Teamfights

Yasuo is an assassin, so you should try to dash into the enemy team and destroy their carry. But before you can do that you must wait for your team to initiate, preferrably a Malphite or Alistar because their Unstoppable Force or Pulverize enable your ultimate, which should be used very early in fights to reap the maximum benefit from its AoE damage and armor penetration buff.
When your team has initiated the fight use Sweeping Blade to get close to the enemy carry and spam your Steel Tempest on him, afterwards you should focus secondary targets. Remember to use your Wind Wall to reduce the damage you take while you are fighting their carry.

Secondary targets

Just a reminder: a teamfight may not be worth if you can't get objectives afterwards, keep that in mind when you are about to flash into a 1 vs 3 for some kills or some other scenario.

Synergy

Yasuo has high synergy with champions that have AoE knock-up skills, try to encourage your teammates to pick these champions, but they still shouldn't get them unless they know how to play the champions!

If you are close enough to certain jungle monsters such as the wight, or golems you are able to dash over the wall with Sweeping Blade

Wind Wall's passive will allow you to recharge flow by dashing with Sweeping Blade so if you are dying to Ignite keep dashing at minions or monsters in order to stack enough flow for the shield.

It's not necessary for an enemy to be knocked-up to take damage from Last Breath as long as they are close enough.

Summary

Well that's it, my Yasuo guide in all its glory. I hope that this inspired you to play Yasuo or atleast helped you to understand him better. If you have suggestion or constructive criticism about this guide feel free to drop me a comment to tell me how you liked it. May The Rain of the Rift bring you joy and plenty of victories on the fields of justice, farewell summoner.

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!